Pen tablets are known as input devices used in electronic devices, such as personal computers. Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-244806 assigned to the present assignee discloses various types of pen tablets.
A typical pen tablet includes a position-pointing stylus and an approximately planar position-detecting device. When a user points at any position on the position-detecting device with the position-pointing stylus in his or her hand, the position-detecting device detects the pointed to position and outputs it to an external electronic device that is connected to the position-detecting device.
Since the user can manipulate the position-pointing stylus as if the user were writing characters or drawing pictures with a pen during an input operation of the electronic device, the user can experience a natural-feeling operation. Thus, pen tablets are popular with users.
For example, when the user inputs drawing positions (hereinafter, this operation is referred to as a drawing operation) when executing a drawing application program in the electronic device, the user can conveniently perform the drawing operation with the pen tablet as if the user were drawing a picture.
When the user executes the drawing application program, the user needs to perform accompanying setting operations in addition to the drawing operation itself. These setting operations include, for example, setting drawing colors, the size of a drawing area, and line thicknesses, scrolling a screen, and zooming in and out.
In general, the user uses a dedicated menu screen to perform these setting operations. In many cases, the user alternately performs the setting operations on the menu screen and the drawing operation. In this environment, since the user needs to suspend the drawing operation and move the position-pointing stylus from a position on a picture being drawn to a position on the menu screen to perform the setting operations on the menu screen during the drawing operation, the continuity of user's thought may be broken, thereby spoiling the user's imagination. The user, who needs to concentrate on the drawing operation, may feel that the operation on the menu screen is highly complicated.